Saddam Hussein’s technocrats yesterday handed over a mountain of documents that they said was clear proof that Iraq had no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons – but U.S. officials said was just a stack of lies.
The paper arsenal was a stack of “half-truths, fictions and incomplete facts,” a high-ranking Bush administration official said.
Iraq’s long-awaited truckload of data – written in Arabic and tortured English – was delivered to U.N. officials in Baghdad as Saddam took to the airwaves to apologize to the people of Kuwait for his bloody 1990 invasion of his neighbors.
Kuwait immediately rejected his apology.
The weekend events were clearly designed to help Saddam clear his international reputation after a decade of war and sanctions – and to garner sympathy from the Arab world.
The massive list – longer than the Baghdad telephone directory – was laid out for reporters’ cameras in a downtown government office.
The dossier, a total of 11,807 pages bound in blue and red covers, included 1,334 pages on biological programs, 1,823 on chemical programs, 6,887 on missiles, and 12 CD-ROMs stuffed with data and other material related to nuclear weapons.
Iraqi Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin said the document would “answer all the questions which have been addressed during the last months and years.”
“I reiterate here Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction,” he told reporters. “I think if the United States has the minimum level of fairness and braveness, it should accept the report and say this is the truth.”
But a high-ranking Bush administration official told The Post that Baghdad’s arms accountants had probably cooked the books.
“The general consensus here is that it will contain lots of half-truths, fictions and incomplete facts,” said the official, adding that Iraq’s convoluted paper trail was intended to dampen U.S. efforts to unseat Saddam – and would likely prolong the inspection process.
“A big volume of documents doesn’t mean [it’s] a clear or complete report,” said another senior U.S. official, adding that the United States had evidence that the Iraqis “not only continued but have accelerated” their weapons programs.
Baghdad snow job
The Iraqis say they don’t have any weapons of mass destruction. These are some of the areas of concern the US hopes have been addressed in Saddam’s 12,000-page weapons declaration (above) submitted to the United Nations yesterday
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
* US intelligence suggests at least 100 warheads filled with biological toxins could be hidden along with up to three times more anthrax and botulism toxin than the thousands of gallons they have previously declared and claimed to have destroyed.
* Experts say the Iraqis may have up to 2,000 gallons of poisons like alfatoxin and gas gangrene that cause lung and liver failure. Also thought to be developing super strain of smallpox resistant to current vaccines.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
* Thought to have hidden up to 3.9 tons of VX nerve gas. Also suspected of working on “dusty VX” gas that can penetrate current protective gear.
* Missing are over 100,000 empty casings for chemical weapons that were sighted previously and 200 tons of missing sarin and mustard gas.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
* Iraqi scientists are suspected of trying to enrich low-grade uranium for use in bombs. Have tried to buy key development components recently.
Source: UNSCOM reports 1991-98; Center for Strategic and International Studies